A little this and a little that

It’s the last day of June and what have I accomplished this month?  Well, not a whole lot, but a little this and a little that.  Interestingly, I have found that I, like my children, thrive on routine.  You get us out of our daily schedules and I feel like I accomplish nothing!

Here are a some highlights from this month:

We have gone swimming. A lot. Anywhere we have been invited and we’ve even invited ourselves over some :)

Lexi and Maddie had their hair cut this week:

Kylie is learning to walk and having a blast playing!

I turned 36.
  

Other things from this month…

We participated in art camp.  I taught while Maddie and Lexi made things! The big girls did VBS. We did swimming lessons.  Well, Maddie did. Lexi was miss noncompliant. Kylie played in the water and I did my best to not get in the teacher’s way! We put the house on the market and I have cleaned.  Do you know how many times you have to sweep EVERY SINGLE DAY in order to keep up with the mess that 3 kids can make?  I have changed a truck load of dirty diapers and washed even more loads of laundry.

So lots of just regular ‘ole everyday fun around this house, just not a great deal to blog about.  And, I’ve been using our home computer, so this post has taken me more than AN HOUR to get ready.  During the time it took for a picture rotate, I folded a load of laundry.  Yep, it’s that slow! I need to get my school laptop connected to my home internet again, maybe that will motivate me to post some crafty pictures :)  You have to know that while I didn’t mention crafting projects, I am of course doing them!! It wouldn’t be summer without me using up TONS of GLUE!!!

The Greatest Gift a Father Can Give

I wish I could remember the name and lyrics to a song I have sung before for special events.. but I can’t .  What I remember of it is… “The greatest gift a father can give, is a life lived for Jesus.”

Oh how true this is.  A life lived for Jesus means so many things.  It means putting the needs of others above yourself.  It means showing your children how to take care of other people. It means living out faith more than just speaking about it. 

I have had the privilege of having such a dad.  My dad is a great man who does his best to live a faithful life everyday.  There is just something inordinately special about a dad and his girls.

Dad’s may not get this.  I don’t know if my dad realizes that the “little things” he did over the years still hold special meaning for me.  More than that, these “little things” taught my friends what a dad’s love could be as well.

Here is one example: When I was in college, my dad sent me this package…

Inside was this: It’s a hug from my dad!
It says, “Since I can’t always be where you are.. I am sending you my very special “daddy hug” to you to use anytime. Just wrap the arms around and interlock the fingers.”

And yes, it was used a lot. By me and my friends.

Moving to now, how wonderful it is that my children have this same kind of daddy!  My girls are learning about God the Father from a daddy who loves them and isn’t afraid to show it!

Here he is playing the Angelina Ballerina game with the girls.  This includes doing ballet moves!

   

And here they all are today, Father’s Day 2010.

What a privilege it is to have two incredible men in my life.

And the winner is…

Michelle said...

Great contest! I love the headboard that you showed! I might have to get one of those! (or maybe something else . . . hmmmm the decisions!)

June 17, 2010 12:43 PM

Michelle... EMAIL ME!! I can't find your email!!!


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Yeah for Michelle who gets a $40 gift certificate to CSN Stores.  And thanks CSN Stores for giving me the chance to host a drawing!
And a quick word about that.. many of my “usual” followers who leave comments didn’t this time.  I wondered why… so I asked.  They didn’t want me spending my own money on a gift for them.  Well, I DIDN’T!! Isn’t it so cool that this store just gave me the opportunity to giveaway such a great prize!
So to all of you out there that hung back to be nice to me, I promise I’ll do another giveaway soon.  :)

The quest for a child-sized armchair and a GIVEAWAY from a really cool store!!

Kylie will be turning one at the end of August and is already more than mobile! She gets into everything and LOVES climbing.  For her birthday I have been on the lookout for a cute armchair that is just her size.  Of course, the one I want from an un-named company is OUTRAGEOUS in cost.. so that got me looking and I am really excited to tell you about this store on the web called CSN Stores.

I first have to show you some of my favorite things from this site..

The headboards:
 

The storage solutions:
 

The child-sized furniture:

I love all of the different things you can get from this site.  They even have an outdoor art store!  Isn’t that crazy! (In a good way..)

No, I haven’t bought the items in the above pictures, but I sure would like too!  I am thinking that the storage bench is a must-have and will be finding a home in our house soon!  As to Kylie’s chair, I’ve put my mother-in-law in charge of finding her a chair for a birthday gift.

But what about a giveaway???

How about a $40 gift certificate to CSN stores!!

The lucky winner will get to go and surf the store and find their own prize!  How exciting!!

To enter, leave a comment about what you might want to buy!  I’ll take comments from now through Saturday night, June 19th.

The In-Betweens

Lately it has been hard to get motivated to blog.  It’s been hard to get motivated to do anything extra as there are always SO many extras going on in our house.  I’ve been just kinda blah. I’m not sad, not mad, not depressed, not anything really, just kinda blah.

So I was talking with my mom about it and I realized while talking with her that maybe it’s because life for the most part for Doug and me and our peers is about raising kids.  We don’t have youth on our side and do lots of fun cool things.  (or any for that matter!)  On the flip side, our children are young so we can’t even see the light at the end of the tunnel.  By no means do I want to wish away this period in my life, but it is an in-between time that right now seems like if just might stretch to eternity.

So I am going to try and make a point to do something positive for myself (and yes, for Doug too). For example, today I had lunch with a friend.  No kids. It was really nice.  Later this week I might even get my haircut.. it’s been a year, and for the record, it’s not that I don’t want to get my haircut, but adding a babysitter cost to a haircut makes it a little pricey!

In the end, I know that I put off anything that is me-related. I use my spending money on my kids, even when I had been saving it for an over-night getaway for Doug and me. I give my kids and my students all of me…everyday.  It’s no wonder I end up blah.

Given that my In-Betweens are going to last another 20 years, I had better figure out how to take care of my responsibilities without losing who I am in the process.

Maybe I’m the only one who has forgotten to put themselves on the list of household priorities, but I would guess not.

Thankful Thursday or a Memorial Box Post or maybe just an I love Denim post

As I posted last, we put our house on the market.  We had someone look at it almost immediately.  They loved the house, that is everything except the den.  That ruined it for them. 

So I talked to the realtor and she mentioned that it just felt cold in there. No draperies, no rug.. just tile and cold.  She was very nice about it, but she was dead on. 

It’s amazing what you don’t notice about a room when you have been living in it for years.  I was so glad to get the tile in, the built-in done and the paint, that I never noticed how hard the room looked, especially when you compared it to the rest of the house.

Well, I decided to do something about it.  And here is my Thankful Thursday, Memorial Box story and the I love denim part…

About 12 years ago I bought a big bunch of NICE (otherwise known as expensive) denim fabric.  I was going to make something important out of it I am sure.  Well, it just never seemed to work.  Over the years we have moved a bunch of times and I have made literally dozens of pairs of curtains and all sorts of household projects using fabric from my stash.  I have even had a garage sale and sold off a lot of fabric.  But in all of this, I just couldn’t let this fabric go.

Moving to Tuesday and my need for draperies for eight windows.  Yes, that’s EIGHT windows. And I needed a rug. Talk about a chunk of change that I was going to have to spend to make this room look nice.  Off I go to Wal-Mart and I find a nice size, reasonably priced rug, YIPPEE! and I look at drapes, but man, $20 for one window..OUCH! And that’s for boring curtains!

So I go home and look through my fabric and there it is.. the DENIM fabric. I take it out and look at it.  I have 2 large pieces of it.  I measure it and consider it and HALLELUJAH!!! I had enough fabric to make some nice curtains.

In the end, I bought a companion stripe fabric for accent curtains and pillows and spent just under $30 total on fabric. If I had bought curtains like this, I would have spent AT LEAST $40 a window!

So yeah, I am excited.  I am so thankful that I was prompted to buy and keep this fabric for just this time.  I realize that it’s just fabric and just curtains, but the difference is amazing!  Even if the house doesn’t sell, I am thrilled to see the transformation.

BEFORE: A picture from last year. The furniture is different, but you get the point :)

AFTER: WOWSERS!! I LOVE IT!!

So while it may seem small to some, I am so THANKFUL that God provided the fabric for the curtains, an inexpensive rug and a totally transformed room!

And, yes, I am keeping a piece of denim for my scrapbook!

Catching Up

Where have the last couple of weeks gone?  Man, it has been a whirlwind.   Here is a brief recap:

• The end of the school year!  Yippee!!
• On Memorial Day we hosted a mini reunion for my theatre buddies from Hardin-Simmons University.  It seems like just a couple of years ago we staying up late working on plays and sets!
• Maddie had a big doctor’s appointment at the Pain Management Clinic at Dallas Children’s Hospital.  It was a good visit.  They have a very comprehensive approach that includes a team of six healthcare professionals evaluating and then the team discusses what they want to do.We are still waiting to hear about a test that was done. 
• Swimming Lessons.  Maddie is doing great.  Lexi is exercising her independence in saying NO! Lexi won’t put her face in the water. Lexi won’t blow bubbles. Lexi won’t go down the slide.  It is driving us all nuts!  I am hoping that maybe today Lexi will decide to be a little more compliant. 
• We listed our house.  The need for a fourth bedroom is greater than our love for the house :( So if you know of anyone that needs an awesome and yes unusual 3 bedroom house in Stephenville, Texas.. send them our way! You know our house has to be on the market for it to look this good with 3 little kids!!
• My monthly scrapbooking class.  We made summer pages.  I have a couple of kits leftover, so if you would like 3 double page layouts for summer the cost is $20 for the kit.  $25 if I make the pages for you.
  
• Today Lexi starts VBS with a friend and Maddie starts Volleyball camp.

Man, I’m tired just thinking about it all!!